On Tuesday, Kota Kinabalu High Court Judge Datuk Ian Chin dismissed theapplication by the two foreign casinos to register in the High Court inSabah and Sarawak the judgment obtained in the English High Court pursuantto the Reciprical Enforcement of Judgment Act, 1958.

In his judgment, Chin said the dismissal of the bid to register the EnglishHigh Court's judgment was because gambling was against the country's publicpolicy, which is belief in God and good social behaviour embedded in theRukunegara.

"In other words, it is against the Rukun Negara. Anything that seeks to goagainst the Rukun Negara must surely be regarded as against public policy,"he said.

As for the argument that gambling debt incurred in Malaysia would suffer thesame fate in another country if he did not allow the registration of theforeign judgment, Chin said: "My short answer would be that the world wouldbe so much better for it and makes for a better public policy."

"The world would be a much nicer place if no country would allow therecovery of a judgment for a gambling debt which was the result, invariably,of the debtor being enticed to gamble on credit and beyond his means," hesaid.

In fact in his judgment, Chin suggested that a law be enacted to allow agambler to sue a casino for having enticed him to gamble beyond his means"if that is not already a common law".

*********

My first opinion after I read that:Wow!!People having to be protected against themselves!What are we?Kids without knowledge of right or wrong? For believers, Adam and Eve ate the fruit of knowledge of good and evil for nothing!They blew away their chance of being bliissfully ignorant of all this crap.They wanted to know what's good and what's bad.They sure put us all in a bad position. Now we have to decide.

Now, if we have laws that prevent people from 'enticing' others into doing things that are detrimental to themselves, like spending beyond their means, over-indulgence in alcohol, slimming themselves to a stick, etc, that should put a lot of commercials in a questionable position.Right?

Come to think of it, in a way the learned judge may be right.Lots of people are still blur.They need to be protected from themselves.Look at what they do to themselves: Smoking is bad.They know that.All the "Tak Nak" campaigns seem to be a waste of effort.They're still puffing away their health and money, and other people's health as well when they do that in front of others.And look at those popping pills to get high.They're supposed to know they could screw up their brains, but they don't care.

Gambling without first having your money; that must another of our wonderful motivation campaigns of "going beyond your limits"!But it is practiced by lots of people who buy shares.To me that's the same as borrowing to gamble.I know, there are folks out there ready to defend that practice.And I know it sounds like it works well for the economy, but looking at the number of people going bankrupt raises lots of doubts.

And then there's HIV and AIDS.Everybody (at least, those with some education) knows it's a one-way-ticket, but there are still those who screw around wantonly, and on top of that, refuse to use condoms.They know very well it also puts their family in danger, but they don't care.

So, now we need laws to control people to control themselves.Whatever happened to self-control?Whatever happened to self-discipline?We seem to have lost that knowledge.Maybe we should go back to BEFORE Adam & Eve.How about - Please press "RESTART"?

2 comments:

Yet another example of our country being run by the retarded. Hey, I thought the Americans are the ones who are notorious for pushing the blame on others. Where did they get this guy from?

I guess the other countries' casinos are now entitled to put up signs like "No Malaysians allowed", right next to the "No Dogs Allowed" sign since they could just be sued by "enticing" them to gamble themselves into great debt.

Add one more to the wonders of the world right? Can't even figure out the logic that this country being against gambling, yet can protect the guy against gambling debt collectors after he has gambled away a fortune (not his own)...... So let's go a-gambling in all the foreign casinos and as soon as we run up a huge debt, run home quickly. "Big Daddy" can protect us!!! Hic....